Window tinting...

I don't get wrapped up about tint. I have all my vehicles tinted, including police car. I have tinted every vehicle I have owned in the last 15 years. Some guys get bent about it, but the way I look at trucks is this, the truck is your home. If I was driving it, it all types of weather, sunny California or Florida, I would want tint to keep it cool and knock the reflection down to help me drive.

 

i have my door windows tinted to 30% (legal) from what i have bben told not very darl but helps keep the heat out alot have had no problems at the scales

 

I know the cops just enforce the laws our bonehead legislature(s) pass, but what's the gripe about window tint anyway? Is it so the cops can be nosy or to protect people from themselves...?

 

Sounds like you got 5% on the back (lets in 5% of the light).. pretty much the darkest you can get

and 35% on the sides (let's in 35% of the light). 35% and higher is typically the legal limit

 

If you read the reg dieselbear posted, it has to allow 70% of the light to pass through it to be legal, blocking out no more than 30%. The 35% is illegal on the front and sides, because it blocks 65% of the light.

 

ya, I had it backwards

 

Like anything else, though, yer only in trouble if'n ya git caught

 

From a non commercial vehicle standpoint I fully understand why there are tint laws. Tractor trailers, when I walk up on a roadside stop, officer safety wise, I can't see in the vehicle anyway to see who may be lying in wait and ready to shoot at me. With pickups, most State's allow the rear window to be as dark as you want but the sides have to allow 30-35% tint. This allows you, as an officer, somewhat to see movement inside the vehicle on your approach. On a passenger car, most State's allow 30-35% on all windows which will allow me to see inside the vehicle, during daylight hours on my approach. I can tell you right now, I have been worried more than once on a middle of the night, out in the middle of now where and I have a car stopped with dark limo tint all the way around. I have hit my spot light and the light reflects directly back, making it even harder to see. Nothing that I have experienced in police work, except for the building with the open door and I have to go in and clear it unsure if I'm walking into an ambush, compares to approaching a vehicle for an unknown risk traffic stop in which you can not see how many people are in the vehicle, windows rolled up, and radio blasting. I have had a few friends killed by gunfire on traffic stops, and I had my own shooting on a traffic stop that the violator was lying in wait for me to approach on the driver's side of the vehicle like we as officer's have done historically millions of times. Luckily for me, this fella acted very suspicious from the moment I lite him up to stop and made furtive movements inside the vehicle (no tinted windows, which allowed me to see him reaching under the seat as he was pulling over). He also kept looking over his left shoulder repeatedly as I called the stop out to my communications officer. He would then look to the rear view mirrow and had his head on a swivel looking for my approach so I would later find out from him that he intended on killing me. As I walked up to the passenger side of the vehicle and startled him, he drove off, but he had the gun in his right hand, resting on his stomach pointed towards the driver's side window waiting for me to walk into view so he could pull the trigger. As it turned out a short pursuit ensued. I still had not seen the gun until he finially stopped and as I ran up to yank his arse out of the vehicle he put the gun to his mouth and fired a single shot as I opened the passenger side door. Somehow, someway this turd decided not to shoot at me before he shot himself. I was fairly green when this happended on a muggy September night in 1998. He had a 32. revolver and somehow he didn't die, but it blew the tip of his tongue off. I responded and picked this idiot up from the hospital a month later when he was released to formally charge him. On the ride to the jail, I asked him what he had done, just playing stupid to see what he would say. "I F'd up. I should have killed the a-hole that stopped me instead of shooting myself." I asked why didn't you? "I was going to but he never walked up to the side of my car. After he was chasing me I knew I was going back to jail. I have spent most of my adult life in jail and didn't want to go back. I tried to kill myself so I wouldn't be in handcuffs again."

The guy was a .33 for his alcohol concentration, a motorcycle gang member who at 47 years old had been in prison for over 20 years and who was not allowed to possess a firearm. He had no license as he was revoked. He had HIV and Hep-B and C. So his outlook on life was pretty bad to begin with. Thankfully he showed the cards he was going to play before I walked up to the vehicle. If he had window tint on that car, which was an 1987 Ford Crown Victoria, I would have never seen all the movement inside the vehicle or got that 6th sense that something was way wrong with the operator's actions.

This is why the tint laws are in effect for most vehicle's. Trucks I don't get wrapped up about, because I can't see any way. Cars on the other hand, I want to see before I walk up soemwhat as to what I am dealing with.

 

Wow DB, thanks for sharing that. We sometimes forget the level of BS you have to deal with.

Do you try to pull people (4 wheelers here) over into a business, like a gas station, to avoid this kind of thing? Or do the crazy ones end up being crazy whether or not they're around other people?

 

Thanks for the generous, real world thinking DB. As you said, the truck is my home. Doesnt everyone have blinds and shades, etc in their home too? I like the tinting for alittle privacy. I have nothing to hide, just want to keep it my home....